clamav-db vs. clamav-filesystem

[Anssi Johansson]

Hi, I've been using ClamAV with the following packages installed:

clamav-0.95.1-1.el5
clamav-lib-0.95.1-1.el5
clamav-lib-0.95.1-1.el5
clamav-server-sysv-0.95.1-1.el5
clamav-filesystem-0.95.1-1.el5
clamav-update-0.95.1-1.el5
clamav-server-0.95.1-1.el5
clamav-data-empty-0.95.1-1.el5

Now when I run 'yum update' the following packages would be updated:

Installing:
  clamav             i386            0.97-12.el5             epel 
     11 M
      replacing  clamav-lib.i386 0.95.1-1.el5

  clamav             x86_64          0.97-12.el5             epel 
     11 M
      replacing  clamav-lib.x86_64 0.95.1-1.el5

  clamav-db          x86_64          0.97-12.el5             epel 
     26 M
      replacing  clamav-filesystem.x86_64 0.95.1-1.el5

  clamd              x86_64          0.97-12.el5             epel 
    177 k
      replacing  clamav-server-sysv.x86_64 0.95.1-1.el5

My concern is that the clamav-db package is forced down my throat. I do 
not want to use clamav-db, because the virus database in it will always 
be outdated.  The clamav-data-empty package was very neat in this regard 
as it satisfied clamav's requirements but didn't interfere with 
downloading the virus database updates with freshclam.

What was the rationale for making clamav depend on clamav-db = 
0.97-12.el5, instead of the previous dependency of data(clamav), which 
was provided by both clamav-data-empty and clamav-data?